Issue - meetings

To receive a presentation on Adult Safeguarding issues.

The Chairman reminded Members that in March 2013 the Committee had given a commitment to scrutinising safeguarding arrangements in Children’s and Adult’s services and as part of the process to enable the committee to gain a better understanding of the challenges faced by Cheshire East in relation to the safeguarding of adults, he had invited the Head of service to give a presentation on key issues.

Sandra Murphy Commissioning Manager attended the meeting and gave a presentation on safeguarding arrangements for adults in Cheshire East.

Sandra explained that a vulnerable adult was defined as a person aged 18 or over who was or may be in need of community care services by reason of:

·         Disability, age of illness and

·         Unable to take care of him or herself

·         Unable to protect him or herself from harm

The Committee was reminded of a small number of high profile national cases which had raised the profile of adult safeguarding issues recently, including the Frances inquiry in relation to mid Staffordshire hospital.

Nationally, there had been an 11% increase in the reporting of safeguarding referrals across the 152 reporting authorities. The North West region had the highest number of referrals and Cheshire East ranked third highest in the North West.

It was suggested that a number of factors had contributed to this situation such as the personalisation agenda which had added many levels of complexity into safeguarding arrangements.

The committee was informed that the Council’s Safeguarding Board now produced multi-agency performance reports and that these in future could be referred to this committee for consideration.

RESOLVED-

(a)          That the presentation be noted;

(b)          That the Head of Individual Commissioning be requested to submit the multi agency adult safeguarding performance report and annual report of the safeguarding report to the October meeting of the Committee.